Veteran journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall reports from the scene on books, writing . . . and life as she knows it.
As a little kid I always had my nose in a book. And now that I'm thoroughly grown up, I still do. Below you'll find author profiles (lots of memoirists) as well as mini – and not-so-mini – book reviews.
Lauren Winner, author of Still, taught a spiritual writing class at The Glen in Santa Fe in 2009. Photo by BF Newhall
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
Yesterday I wrote about five intriguing books that have come across my desk in recent months — good books that I never got around to reading. Here are two more books — by memoirists Anne LaMott and Lauren Winner — that I’ve actually managed to blast through in a [Read more...]
And Patricia Bracewell’s book makes eight. I resisted purchasing her tantalizing historical novel, Shadow on the Crown, at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA, earlier this week. So it’s not on my gotta-read list — yet. Photo by BF Newhall
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
Seven books I never read. Make that five, because I did actually skim through two of the seven intriguing books currently languishing on my bookshelf, crying out to be read. (Is skimming [Read more...]
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
I first met Jasmin Darznik back in 2006, and right away she presented a problem.
We were in the same nonfiction workshop – it was led by agent Michael Carlisle – at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley.
I had dutifully read Jasmin’s manuscript the night before our class – and for the first time in my workshopping career, I thought I had nothing helpful to say to the writer. [Read more...]
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
People who are against same-sex marriage often go out of their way to say, “Marriage is between one man and one woman.”
I noticed that while reporting a story about gay marriage for the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, California, some years ago.
Why “one” man and “one” woman, I wondered? Isn’t it obvious that a marriage is between two people? [Read more...]
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
When we are young, we strive, we hope, we want, we do. We are busy with the necessary work of keeping civilization alive and ourselves afloat in it. And that’s OK.
But, says Richard Rohr, there comes a time, in the second half of life, when we realize that we are doomed to failure. [Read more...]
